


The Depths

by oli36514



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Memories, Metaphors, Mind Meld, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28613679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oli36514/pseuds/oli36514
Summary: Shepard is overwhelmed the first time Liara tries to meld with him to examine the prothean beacon's message.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Depths

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Contains references to drowning.

Liara had suggested that perhaps she could help him interpret his disturbing prothean visions, and Shepard had agreed to meld with her despite knowing that she had her own ulterior motives.

He had accepted her offer out of a sense of twisted obligation, that he was a Spectre and that Spectres did uncomfortable things as a matter of course. That and the faint hope that somehow, in spite of all of his recent setbacks, this asari he barely knew would be able to swoop in and save the day. To tell him how to stop Saren.

So, she took his hand and closed her eyes. When they opened again, all was black.

As soon as he felt that strange, foreign presence touch his mind, he felt an unconscious urge to _push_ , to struggle and expel the alien sensation through sheer force of will.

That urge to panic brought forth memories: His mother roping him into taking swimming lessons. The way the swimming instructor’s iron presence seemed more likely to sink than float.

Being pushed directly into the deep end of the pool without notice. The sudden shock as the cold water slapped his torso and then enveloped him. “Your body will react,” the instructor had mentioned earlier, almost offhand.

He wasn’t wrong.

Now, as he had in his childhood, Shepard found himself floundering as he was abruptly thrust into a totally new environment. He felt himself sink into her thoughts, flailing and kicking the whole way.

He knew that Liara was in much the same situation, immersed in his own consciousness. Part of him wondered if she was getting splashed by his struggling just like his grizzled old swim instructor had been. Part of him wanted her to get drenched for even suggesting that they do this.

He kept that memory of swimming in mind as he immersed himself – or rather was forced to immerse himself – in Liara’s consciousness. As a grounding point, he’d hoped. Some way to keep his sense of self even as a swarm of memories, asari and prothean, were brought abruptly to the surface.

_Light and warmth, but harsh and not at all comforting. Fire? A deeply disturbing feeling (weariness? resignation?) that has no name._

_Using my small three-fingered hands to reform gravity around herself as a strange potted plant (hibiscus?) floats in front of us, cloaked in green-blue._

Shepard kept trying to return to familiar ground, grasping desperately at his childhood memory.

_Blue hands pulling out of chlorinated depths. Clammy skin. A deep rumbling cough and the sweet taste of fresh air, smoke and decay rushing into her-my-our lungs._

His focus was failing though. As he sank deeper into alien thoughts that his brain wasn’t quite capable of comprehending, he could feel his chest tightening. That rising urge to _just breathe_ and damn the consequences.

Then she was there.

In the same way his instructor had dragged him from the frigid water just as the darkness was beginning to close in, Liara saved him from falling deeper into this new and frightening abyss.

She stopped the flow of memories alien to him, merely existing within the confines of his mind as a warm, deliberately separate presence. His memories started to make sense again, and she watched silently as the instructor patted the boy placatingly on the head, still gasping and coughing up water.

He began to breathe, and that deep crushing sensation was replaced by a calmness, a sense of floating.

They drifted together for an unknowable length of time. She knew the instant Shepard was feeling brave, and in that moment, they dove together headfirst into the horrors of millennia past.

They dove and dove deeper into the suffocating darkness, and just when Shepard felt he could hold himself no longer, the connection severed and he found himself back on the _Normandy_ , immersed instead in ocean-blue eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this to feel somewhat strange and disjointed to give a sense of Shepard’s vertigo at melding minds for the first time. Let me know what you think!


End file.
